The Big Lebowski [1998]
Director: Ethan Coen, Joel Coen
Actor: Jeff Bridges, John Goodman, Julianne Moore, Steve Buscemi, Philip Seymour Hoffman, Peter Stormare, John Turturro
If there had been a machine that could distill all the cool and awesome out of every cool and awesome thing that has ever happened, ever, I’m sure that some of that pure coolness and awesome ended up in this particular Coen Brothers movie. I must’ve seen this film at least half a dozen times, and it continues to make me laugh as much the last time as it did the first.
The story is about The Dude (Bridges), a lazy, unemployed guy without a care in the world, bowling his time away with his friends Walter (Goodman) and Donnie (Buscemi). He shares his real name, Jeff Lebowski, with an old, rich and vain man who has a young, trophy wife who is an ex-pornstar whose escapades all over town leads her to owe money to known pornographer Jackie Treehorn. Treehorn sends his goons to retrieve the money, but these boneheads shake down the wrong Lebowski; The Dude. In the process, one of them, in an act of fuck-offedness, pisses on The Dude’s rug, ruining it forever. The Dude decides to talk to The Big Lebowski to get compensated for his loss. By the time he does so, Bunny, the ex-pornstar wife of The Big Lebowski, is kidnapped, and Lebowski wants The Dude to help in delivering the ransom money. The Dude gets caught up in a big conspiracy, with feints within feints. Hilarity ensues.
The acting is top-notch. Jeff Bridges usually does these really straight-laced roles, but here draws together every aspect of lazy together in a great, great character. John Goodman plays a tremendously disturbed ‘Nam veteran, obviously intelligent and well-read, but dealing with intense rages. Julianne Moore plays Maude Lebowski, The Big Lebowski’s eccentric daughter, is a bit of a caricature, but one that’s very lovable in her weird way.
The Coen Brothers don’t necessarily have all the best movies, perhaps most of them are pretty good, but for me they’re not all very enjoyable (Oh, Brother… for instance), but they certainly know how to make a movie that falls outside the norm that Hollywood preaches. They make refreshing and exciting films that defy the normal formula, and therefore remain unpredictable.
